Cuomo Still Wants Independent Redistricting

Speaking today outside Syracuse, Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters that he would still veto any legislative district lines in 2012 that don’t come from an independent panel, a stance he took during last year’s campaign. (h/t to Jimmy Vielkind, who made the drive west from the Capitol to the event.)

Cuomo didn’t immediately say if that included the current panel made up of lawmakers, called the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment. But after reporters persisted, Cuomo said that he would veto the district lines they bring to his desk.

“It’s not non-partisan,” Cuomo said of the current group.

He also fired back at Assemblyman Jack McEneny, D-Albany, a member of the panel, who said this morning that if Cuomo vetoed their work it would be “a very petty approach.”

“I understand the assemblyman’s point that he wants to draw his own lines. And everybody would like to draw their own, what they call lines, defining their own district,” Cuomo said. “I want to have lines drawn that represent the people of the state of New York, not a particular assemblyman.”